Posts tagged "Truth"

Out With The Old, In With The New!

The Sagittarius New Moon brings together heart & mind—as do all new moons—allowing us to plant seeds around the Sagittarian archetype. At 26 degrees 31 minutes of the sign of the archer, this new moon occurs at 10:30 pm PT on December 17 & 1:30 am ET on December 18.

Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter–the planet of expansion of consciousness–is an adventurous, optimistic, glass is always half-full type of energy. This sign represents expansiveness in general, but particularly in relation to our ability to expand our way of thinking…

Why?

Because this is how we develop our general belief system, or philosophy about life…

The December 3 Gemini Full Moon asked us to look at where old beliefs may no longer serve us and to jettison those deemed to have outlived their usefulness or purpose. The upcoming Sadge New Moon says: “hey, now you can replace old ideas by planting seeds for new ideas, philosophies, and beliefs!”

The importance of getting rid of old, outworn, inflexible, no longer profitable philosophies & beliefs was paramount during the waning Gemini Full Moon because as we did, we created space for new ideas and beliefs!

This is the gift of the Sadge New Moon! It tells us that now we can envision what we want for our future that’s more in alignment with what our soul truly believes is right for us individually, instead of what we’ve been taught, told, or forced to believe in the past.

Supported by Mercury, Venus, and Saturn—all in Sagittarius—this Sagittarius New Moon is the perfect time to get fired up about the new year as it approaches! As Venus moves into a favorable trine aspect with change-maker Uranus, we can easily see how new ideas and ways of thinking may support positive change and growth around our value system…

Co-Create 2018!

Likewise, Mars waxing into a trine with Neptune at this Sagittarius New Moon sets the stage for us to dream ourselves into the altruistic kind of energy necessary to achieve success in the new year…

This Mars/Neptune aspect tells us that—whatever changes we conceive of making for 2018—we’ll benefit most by playing neither the victim nor the martyr, but rather by understanding we’re part of a greater “each man’s joy is joy to me; each man’s grief is my own” whole…

This is important to remember moving forward, not least because a more realistic and compassionate view of the world (and our role in it) will undoubtedly increase our chances of greater success over time…

When you spend time thinking about 2018 and how to move forward to co-create your own future, you may notice new ideas slowly replacing old ones as they become less and less useful to you now…

Lending us a hand with this process, we’ve got Mercury retrograde in Sagittarius until December 22, calling us still to review situations, projects, relationships, etc. We’ll find ourselves going over old ground to revisit what needs to be tweaked in any of these areas.

However, Mercury’s retrograde period assures us this is necessary so we may either continue forward on more solid footing, or end or abandon what’s not working. In this way, when Mercury stations direct on December 22, we can embark on our plan for a new course of action, if need be…one that espouses a different set of beliefs, perhaps more grounded in reality…

Meanwhile, Mars entrance into Scorpio on December 9 is still in effect until January 26, when the warrior god moves on into Sagittarius. For now, motivated Mars in the sign of secrets—especially those to do with taboo subjects such as sex & money—will likely continue to excavate and reveal additional information about those who’ve crossed the line and perpetrated crimes in these areas.

Likewise, Mars waxing into a trine with Neptune at this Sagittarius New Moon sets the stage for us to dream ourselves into the altruistic kind of energy necessary to achieve success in the new year…

This Mars/Neptune aspect tells us that—whatever changes we conceive of making for 2018, we’ll benefit most by playing neither the victim nor the martyr. Rather, part of our success will be derived through understanding we’re part of a greater “each man’s joy is joy to me; each man’s grief is my own” whole…

This is important to remember moving forward, not least because a more realistic and compassionate view of the world (and our role in it) will undoubtedly increase our chances of success over time…

Saturn Enters Capricorn: Time To Get Real

In order to really discuss the “truth” about astrology, it’s important to understand that this metaphysical tool can lead us to greater insight and understanding–both about ourselves and the world around us.

This entails not only understanding the positive attributes of planets and signs and their configurations, both in the sky and our individual charts, but also the negative side of their archetypal meanings.

Why bring this up now?

Primarily because Saturn’s entrance into the sign of Capricorn, where it will be from December 19, 2017 until March 22, 2020, tells us two things: we can use this time period to get real and get down to business, or we can waste it by avoiding our responsibilities.

The penalty for avoidance is that nagging oppressive notion that we SHOULD be doing something, but we’re not. You know, the kind that hangs over your conscious mind like a cloud, that sits just behind you when you’re trying to be in the moment & keeps tapping you on the shoulder, constantly reminding you of your “duties” and your inability to adequately fulfill them…

This, over time, can cause a type of slow spiraling depression from which it often feels like we cannot extricate ourselves. We may feel crappy about ourselves, like we don’t deserve good things happening to us, or that life it hard—often simply too hard—to even make us want to try. In short, we may develop a defeatist attitude par excellence!

When this happens, we may sink further and further down, increasingly aware of all the things we meant to do that have now piled one on top of the other, and all the things we mean to do now and in the future, but that we’ve done none of…

The reward for getting down to business now, while Saturn transits through its own sign, is that, as a result of hard work—often VERY hard work—we can not only accomplish much, but after doing so, we’ll roll into bed each night exhausted but far more fulfilled.

Why?

As a result of having tackled what needed (and needs) to be done, even if we’ve procrastinated in the past, even if we’ve made a million excuses, come up with a thousand reasons why we can’t or won’t or don’t have to do it, we’ll feel good that we accomplished something…

And, if we build on this momentum without allowing ourselves to self-sabotage, if we stand up to Saturn in Cap’s inevitable self-judgmental attitude when this energy is at its worst, then we can feel successful in the end…

Success, mind you, doesn’t have to be BIG. Rather, it can be incremental, on a day by day basis…please keep this mind, as Rome wasn’t built in a day…

When The Lord Of Karma Comes A ‘Callin’

“Seven moons and seven suns, Heaven waits for those who run…” ~ Audioslave

Let’s talk about Saturn as the Lord of Karma, which is also how this planet’s archetypal energies are often interpreted. In this astrologer’s opinion, it’s not simply all that happened in the past (either in this lifetime or past lives) catching up with us in order to torture/punish us as we stand helplessly victim to any “crimes” of our past.

Rather, karma is something we create every moment of everyday moving forward.

Therefore, we have the opportunity to change up our karma as we move forward, not because we need to eradicate the past (which is impossible to do, as those of us who’ve tried well know!) but to change our future, a.k.a., our destiny…

A time of reckoning is upon us all, but this is not the grim reaper calling. Rather, it’s the Lord of Karma, as Saturn is known in mythology, attempting to teach us into greater levels of maturity.

The method of Saturn’s lessons?

To learn by experience! When we have the guts to face our perceived inadequacies—meaning those areas where we feel “less than,” or like stupid, inexperienced, scared, lazy, far-from-perfect, no good, rotten ne’er-do-wells–Saturn rewards us for our bravery.

However, often the trouble is this: We don’t like to learn Saturnian-type lessons if we don’t have to. We’d much rather drift, coast, lay back, procrastinate, or generally avoid, avoid, avoid doing the kind of hard work Saturn requires of us.

And this means that Saturn’s lessons are designed to wake us up to the notion that “karma” is a fluid, ongoing, living, breathing, energy. It’s NOT a static, gloom & doom, no-way-can-you-change-your-future-no-matter-how-hard-you-try.

However, Saturn’s lessons, at the time they are being administered, often seem harsh. They can leave us to bemoan our fate, wallow in our

misfortune, mire ourselves in the darkness of depression, don the cloak of victimhood, or react in any other negative ways to people and events around us–especially those we feel have abandoned us in our time of need…

“The frustrating experiences connected with Saturn are obviously necessary, as they are educational in a practical, as well as a psychological sense,” writes astrologer & Jungian psychologist Liz Greene in her book Saturn, A New Look at an Old Devil.

“The basic fact remains the same: human beings do not earn free will except through self-discovery, and they do not attempt self-discovery until things become so painful that they have no other choice.”

In short, Saturn’s a “no pain, no gain” type of guy.

Sun In Capricorn Joins Saturn At Winter Solstice

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.” ~ Desmond Tutu

On December 21, the shortest day of the year is finally here! For those of us in the northern hemisphere, we can rejoice that our days will lengthen in light by about 2 minutes each until we reach the summer solstice in June when the opposite will become our reality…

For now, however, it’s good to remember the adage “it’s always darkest before the dawn,” and to hang in there, even as we feel the morphing of energy at the winter solstice away from a more happy-go-lucky Sagittarian nature into decidedly more serious Saturnian territory.

This serious message is enhanced by the Sun’s meet up with Saturn in Capricorn on this day, too. It reminds us now that if we let go of old ways of thinking we’ll begin slowly to solidify our future ideas, plans, beliefs, and philosophies, so that they’ll be given the respect they deserve going forward.

How’s that?

Because they’re rooted in a more expansive personal value system–one that contains increased self-compassion and the kind of love for others that generates true brotherly/sisterly love.

How can such self-honoring and recognition that “there but for the grace of God go I” fail to result in the planting of seeds now for a realistic & more successful future?

Answer: It can’t…

Here’s my tribute to the end of the shortest days of the year via Audioslave’s video The Last Remaining Light…Remember, it’s a future of sunnier skies from here!:

Duality: As Within So Without

The energy of this 4-5 degrees’ Gemini New Moon puts both luminaries strongly under the influence of the decidedly mutable archetypal sign often depicted as twins and therefore representative of duality.

Inherent in Gemini is an archetypal split that mirrors back to us this concept of duality.

The earliest stories set down in writing, as far back in history as we can remember, recount tales of brother vs. brother (think Cain and Abel), good vs. evil (think God vs. the Devil), dark vs. light (think night vs. day), and more…

The messenger god Mercury, ruler of this Gemini New Moon, is also the god of travelers and therefore often depicted at crossroads, or places where one has the choice to travel left or right, north or south, east or west.

Able to transport himself between worlds—that of the living and the dead, as well as to Mt. Olympus, home of the gods and goddesses in Greek mythology—Mercury’s a solid representation not only of metaphorical duality but of the kind with which we deal daily.

In addition to twins, Mercury rules pairs, such as hands, feet, lungs, etc. Mercury’s talents extend to sleight of hand and magic tricks, such as shell games you find out on the street in major cities like New York. For that (in part) he’s earned the reputation of a trickster, or one who loves to pull pranks on people or to confuse them mentally.

The Bigger Picture

Of the three rational air signs—Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius—it’s Gemini that’s most prone to the downside of mutable energy: confusion.

I always picture Geminian energy run amuck as a dog chasing his tail. Spend a moment or two imagining or visualizing such a scene, and I’m sure you’ll get what I mean…he doesn’t know if he’s coming or going and, eventually, he loses sight of what he was doing as the round and round makes him both forgetful and dizzy…

In similar fashion, those who carry a large amount of Gemini energy, or at times like a Gemini New Moon, may find it difficult to recognize the forest from the trees, so to speak.

We have a choice at this Gemini New Moon: we may plant a seed of confusion–or one of understanding.

Understanding what?

That it’s the bits and pieces of information which, if we allow ourselves to view them as a confusing conglomeration of disconnected, differentiated, and potentially disorienting separates with no inter-connected meaning, will never show us a coherent bigger picture that makes sense to us.

If, however, we can realize through Sagittarius, Gemini’s polar opposite, that those seemingly simple and disparate bits of information are really part of a larger, whole picture, we may begin to gain enough perspective to see and understand the larger tapestry…

Set If Off

Let’s keep in mind that this Gemini New Moon is not only highly mutable, but also unaspected. However, it is decidedly not alone…

What stands out most clearly to me at this Gemini New Moon is the rising tension building as Mars approaches an opposition to Saturn. In traditional astrology, these are the two malefics, the baddest of the bad boys.

But even if we take a more modern psychological view on the subject of these two planets in frictional aspect to one another in the sky—as I am wont to do-there’s a whole lot of growing frustration…

What we’ve had brewing, leading up to today’s Gemini New Moon, is a waxing mutable T-square between Mars in Gemini opposite Saturn in Sagittarius and squaring Chiron in Pisces.

Mars’ approach to Saturn and square to Chiron has been building in tension for more than a week now. On May 18, when the Moon in Aquarius approached its monthly meetup with the South Node, newly in Aquarius, the Taurus Sun waxed into a square with the transiting Nodes, designators of collective karma.

At the same time, Mars came within 10 degrees of its opposition to Saturn and square to Chiron. This astrologer doesn’t get crazy about orbs, or insist that planets must be within a certain degree range before they can influence human nature. Rather, she observes…When Mars, the faster moving planet, shifts into frictional aspect with Saturn, always it holds the capability for ignition, or the potential to set off an explosion.

On May 18, 26-year-old Richard Rojas drove his maroon Honda Accord 100 miles an hour through midtown Manhattan, jumped the curb at 42nd Street & Seventh Avenue, and raced at breakneck speed along the sidewalk for three blocks running over anyone and anything in his path.

Traveling “at a fast rate of speed,” according to bystander, “to me it looked like it was trying to hit as many people as possible. People were trying to jump out of the way.”

In Rojas’ path was 18-year-old Elyssa Elsman of Portage, Michigan, her 13-year-old sister, and 21 others. Elyssa was killed before Rojas’ car upended after crashing into a road barrier on 45th Street and Broadway, near the midtown Marriot Marquis Hotel.

“She just hit the floor and he went over her,” a nearby security guard told A New York Times’ reporter.

When taken into custody, police determined Rojas was high on PCP and delusional (and not an international terrorist.) He reportedly told police he’d “wanted people to die.”

Between A Rock & A Hard Place

As Mars continued to wax into frictional aspect with Saturn and Chiron, we saw another example of this energy’s potential for violence when a suicide bomber killed 22 people and wounded 59 others at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, on May 22.

The tension continues to build at this Gemini New Moon as Mars moves fast through Gemini, and Saturn in Sagittarius holds tightly to his religious and/or philosophical ideology.

Saturn is lead, or the rock, Mars the hard place in which we may find

ourselves squirming uncomfortably as frustration over any given situation in our lives continues to build.

Meanwhile, Chiron in Pisces cries I’m hurt! Leave me alone! I just want to escape and fantasize about a better world—one where I’m rewarded through the retribution of those who are/were the cause of my suffering.

Strapping a bomb loaded with nails to yourself and detonating in it in the name of a cause is indicative of the lowest form of energies inherent in this still waxing T-square.

As Mars approaches exact opposition to Saturn on May 28/29 (depending on your location), it can make us feel like we’re between a rock and a hard place as the tension caused by this opposition comes to ahead and pops like a pimple or a boil.

Those of us with planets and/or angles caught in this T-square’s energy are being asked to look at any trauma ignited now as a “replay” of past trauma, be

it from this lifetime or past life karma…

Only then can we begin to figure out how to heal—or continue to heal— such traumas.

I Am Not Your Rolling Wheels…

Duality…in the crossroad walkway connecting the Manchester arena and the local train station, a suicide bomber detonated himself at the end of an Ariana Grande concert filled with young people.

Gemini represents youth. This archetype is sometimes referred to as the puer aeternus, or the Peter Pan energy of one who resists growing up, preferring instead to remain eternally young.

Mars is always about taking action, regardless of what kind or its potential outcome, and often represents anything heated, such as bombs, guns, fire, blades, etc.

Saturn in Sagittarius—the sign of belief systems—is lead, or heavy metal, while Chiron, the wounded healer, in Pisces can symbolize an energy apt to weep pity me, I’m a victim, woe to me, how can I bear this terrible suffering?

When I synthesize these mutable energies, I get the image of one who is among, shall we say, the “walking wounded.” An individual who, rather than try to heal his own wounds by going out and helping others heal, feels he has no choice but to sacrifice himself in order to alleviate whatever mortal pain he’s in.

What great irony that someone angry about victimization (Chiron in Pisces) packed himself with explosives made of metal nails in the name of a religious cause (Saturn in Sadge) and set alight a bomb that targeted young people near a place of local transportation.

You can’t make this sh#t up…☹

…I Am The Highway

So, what will be ignited at this Gemini New Moon or shortly thereafter? I believe we need only look at the world around us to become conscious of what’s mirrored back.

Saturn always asks us to be our own best parent, while Chiron asks us to heal the split between our more primitive nature and physical bodies, and our cognitive capabilities and spiritual knowing.

This growing opposition and square from Mars is the match–however, what we do with that flame is up to us!

My recommendation is to use whatever ignites now as a torch to light your way to greater consciousness about issues that surround you so that you may more clearly see how to heal for your future…

What’s wounded you in terms of past restrictions or abandonment in your life? Where or how might you have turned such wounding into the kind of victim stance that prevents you from taking right and appropriate action and/or keeps you stuck in preferring either to be saved by–or to save–another or others?

Mars square Chiron is about how your personal will was stifled and/or you were prevented from taking action. While on the surface, both Mars’ aspects to Saturn and Chiron may translate into similarly wounding pasts, the challenge with the aspect to Chiron is for us to be able to discover where we are all brothers and sisters under the skin and to develop compassion for both ourselves and our perpetrators, whether their sins were of commission or omission…

Once we recognize the humanity of our past traumatic situations, we can view them less from the point of view of a “victim” or “savior,” and more from that of one who recognizes we’re all human. After all, it’s healthier to grieve, heal, and move on, than to carry the torch of our past suffering with us everywhere we go…

Another opportunity is presented to us by the fact that Mars is waxing into a sextile to Uranus at this Gemini New Moon, which provides the chance for us to see more clearly as well through sudden insights that strike with lightning bolt clarity.

Use these insights well—they may be secrets surfacing or resurfacing or simple facts about which you were previously unaware—and they may come out through an argument with another or others, we don’t know…

What we do know is that the opportunity is always there to make lemonade out of lemons!

Long & Weary My Road Has Been

The inexplicable senselessness of terrorist incidents (whether in the name of a “cause” or due to mental health issues) in the end highlights for us all that–for better or for worse–we are all traveling the same road toward consciousness.

The fact that some deny this journey by veering off onto a more delusional path is likewise inexplicably sad, especially when they have the sheer unmitigated gall to inflict pain upon innocents. For all those affected by the recent events outlined above, as well as those going through their own personal tragedies, I extend my sincerest condolences and send out to all light and love… Like many others, I choose the path about which the late great John Lennon wrote–to imagine all the people living life in peace…

Here’s a look at an Audioslave song/video of the late Chris Cornell’s which I feel reflects nicely his Sadge Moon opposite Mars & Venus in Gemini’s understanding of duality…(if you’ve never heard him before, stick with it as the vocal gets better as it goes–he’s one of the great voices of rock n’ roll & will be sorely missed…)

May he, and all victims everywhere, be their deaths self-imposed or otherwise, rest in peace…

Gemini Full Moon: Super Moon Super Important?

Full Moons are often a time of release, and this Gemini Full Moon is no different.

However, it’s interesting to note that this one is the third and final full super moon of the year. The first two occurred just last month and the month before (with November 14’s Taurus Full Moon and October 15’s Aries Full Moon, respectively.)

In all honesty, I’ve not paid much attention to super full moons, as I saw them simply as an astronomical occurrence during which the Moon’s orbit brings it closest to Earth (known as perigee.)

Looking back now, though, I don’t think it would be wildly inappropriate as an astrologer for me to infer that the Moon’s movement closest to Earth during these past three lunar cycles is NOT an accident. Nor do I think it should remain, on my part at least, without mention.

Therefore, I believe the bigger picture of what we’ve been called to “see” during these past three months when the Moon coincidentally placed itself so brightly in our pathway (the months leading up to and directly following theNovember 8 U.S. presidential election) is focused on “truth…”

The True Wellspring Of “Truth”

The Sun’s current passage through the sign of Sagittarius highlights for us all the issue of our higher truths. Yes, Sadge archetypal energy is about long distance travel, higher education, religion, and law, but always I bottom line archetypes down to what I believe are their true core essences…

What is the essence of Sagittarius?

Basically, it’s what we all—both individually and as a collective—believe to be “the truth.” Such “truths” often draw their inspiration from a more divine source, as Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter the king of the gods, whose home is high above the earth on Mount Olympus.

So, a divinely inspired “truth,” such as that transmitted directly from God to Moses at Mt. Sinai, to Jesus prior to his crucifixion, and to Mohammed from the messenger archangel Gabriel, is what we’re talkin’ about here…

Whether these religious stories are real or apocryphal is less relevant than whether they archetypally represent the notion that our deeper truths come from our soul because our souls are automatically divinely connected.

Seen in this context, religious stories depicting the receipt of messages directly from God become metaphors for the ability of every individual to hear the voice of divine truth from within…

Who’s Truth Is Truer Under This Gemini Full Moon?

Once we’re able to recognize this automatic divine connection, the next step is in choosing to believe that what we hear is real. And the best way to do this is to quiet the other voices around us as we travel ever deeper into the realm of our psyches to ascertain that which our soul truly needs and desires.

This Gemini Full Moon calls us to look at where these many outside voices may have led us astray in our search for answers to life’s deeper questions, including “what makes me truly happy?”

This downside of Gemini archetypal energy normally manifests as distraction,overwhelm, information overload, too many things coming at us too fast from too many directions, and generally circular thinking that doesn’t allow us to see, hear, or feel our deeper truths.

Any onslaught of information—be it fake news or real—runs the risk of leading us off the path toward greater consciousness. The Gemini Full Moon illustrates how we can send our energy into a mutable frenzy to such a degree that we don’t know if what we see, hear, or feel is imaginary or real.

Integration of the heart (Gemini Moon) and mind (Sagittarius Sun) is about letting go of that mutable dog-chasing-its-tail energy into which the Gemini archetype often gets lost and instead listening to the divinely-inspired voice within…

Saturn Conjunct Sun, Chiron Square Full Moon

During this Gemini Full Moon, the Sagittarius Sun is just past its conjunction to Saturn, which also opposes the Gemini Moon.

This has the potential to play out in one of two different ways, depending:

1) Saturn imbues the Sadge Sun with a certain “belief system” gravitas that’s then drawn up and out by the Moon to express—through its foundational commitment to these beliefs—our soul’s truths; or

2) Saturn weighs down, consolidates, and restricts us to a fear-based, finite “belief system,” or one that’s not open to new ideas, information, or ways of thinking and–as a result–the opportunity for expansion of consciousness is lost…

The square to this Gemini Full Moon by Chiron in Pisces reminds us there’s a wound to believing in our higher selves and to the notion that our higher self is part of the divine collective. It’s this wound we are challenged now to integrate via stilling the outside noise so we may hear the authentic voice of our higher selves.

We are each our own temple, and though many of us recognize this truth on a physical level, often we forget about it on the mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. Allowing the kinds of disparate thoughts that invade our psyches to produce more harm than good, more worry than calm, more insecurity than security, only keeps us distracted from our true inner journey…

Easy Air Energy

There’s also a grand air trine between Jupiter in Libra, Mars in Aquarius, and the Gemini Moon, which means that Mars and Jupiter also sextile the Sun and Saturn. Altogether, this can aid us in moving quickly toward positive recognition of our truths or, alternatively, it can provide an easy way out of such hard work.

Air is rational thought, and it may be easy with a grand air trine (especially with fast Mars and expansive Jupiter energy involved!) to become caught up in a particular way of thinking that moves us quickly out of deep introspection and toward more mentally facile pursuits.

However, if we choose to work positively in the direction of exploring our psyches as a way to make the unconscious more conscious, this grand air trine may provide us with the capability for some outside-the-box Aquarian aha! moments. The light shed by these may illuminate the split between our rational mind’s ego orientation and that of our inner, higher, selves and thus allow us a new perspective…

What’s In It For Me?

How do we know which of our truths are keepers and which ones to jettison as we attempt to navigate this Gemini Full Moon?

Clearing the mind of chatter through meditation—sitting, moving, whatever—always helps. Recognizing synchronicities and choosing to believe they are divinely-inspired messages helps as well.

Having the conviction that your “truth” may well be true for you, but not for anyone else, goes a long way toward self-acceptance first and acceptance of others next.

Sagittarius energy calls us to recognize the negativity of “righteousness” of any one belief system over the other, while Gemini reminds us there are many different angles—or perspectives–to every thought…

In honor of Gemini Sun/Sadge Rising Bob Dylan’s recent receipt of the Nobel Prize for Literature, here’s his song A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fallwhich somehow seems fitting for this month’s Gemini Full Moon!

Or, simply read his uncannily prescient lyrics here:

“Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son
And where have you been, my darling young one
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son
And what did you see, my darling young one
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…

Oh, what did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…

And what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can s it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…”

Gemini Full Moon: Super Moon Super Important?

Full Moons are often a time of release, and this Gemini Full Moon is no different.

However, it’s interesting to note that this one is the third and final full super moon of the year. The first two occurred just last month and the month before (with November 14’s Taurus Full Moon and October 15’s Aries Full Moon, respectively.)

In all honesty, I’ve not paid much attention to super full moons, as I saw them simply as an astronomical occurrence during which the Moon’s orbit brings it closest to Earth (known as perigee.)

Looking back now, though, I don’t think it would be wildly inappropriate as an astrologer for me to infer that the Moon’s movement closest to Earth during these past three lunar cycles is NOT an accident. Nor do I think it should remain, on my part at least, without mention.

Therefore, I believe the bigger picture of what we’ve been called to “see” during these past three months when the Moon coincidentally placed itself so brightly in our pathway (the months leading up to and directly following theNovember 8 U.S. presidential election) is focused on “truth…”

The True Wellspring Of “Truth”

The Sun’s current passage through the sign of Sagittarius highlights for us all the issue of our higher truths. Yes, Sadge archetypal energy is about long distance travel, higher education, religion, and law, but always I bottom line archetypes down to what I believe are their true core essences…

What is the essence of Sagittarius?

Basically, it’s what we all—both individually and as a collective—believe to be “the truth.” Such “truths” often draw their inspiration from a more divine source, as Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter the king of the gods, whose home is high above the earth on Mount Olympus.

So, a divinely inspired “truth,” such as that transmitted directly from God to Moses at Mt. Sinai, to Jesus prior to his crucifixion, and to Mohammed from the messenger archangel Gabriel, is what we’re talkin’ about here…

Whether these religious stories are real or apocryphal is less relevant than whether they archetypally represent the notion that our deeper truths come from our soul because our souls are automatically divinely connected.

Seen in this context, religious stories depicting the receipt of messages directly from God become metaphors for the ability of every individual to hear the voice of divine truth from within…

Who’s Truth Is Truer Under This Gemini Full Moon?

Once we’re able to recognize this automatic divine connection, the next step is in choosing to believe that what we hear is real. And the best way to do this is to quiet the other voices around us as we travel ever deeper into the realm of our psyches to ascertain that which our soul truly needs and desires.

This Gemini Full Moon calls us to look at where these many outside voices may have led us astray in our search for answers to life’s deeper questions, including “what makes me truly happy?”

This downside of Gemini archetypal energy normally manifests as distraction,overwhelm, information overload, too many things coming at us too fast from too many directions, and generally circular thinking that doesn’t allow us to see, hear, or feel our deeper truths.

Any onslaught of information—be it fake news or real—runs the risk of leading us off the path toward greater consciousness. The Gemini Full Moon illustrates how we can send our energy into a mutable frenzy to such a degree that we don’t know if what we see, hear, or feel is imaginary or real.

Integration of the heart (Gemini Moon) and mind (Sagittarius Sun) is about letting go of that mutable dog-chasing-its-tail energy into which the Gemini archetype often gets lost and instead listening to the divinely-inspired voice within…

Saturn Conjunct Sun, Chiron Square Full Moon

During this Gemini Full Moon, the Sagittarius Sun is just past its conjunction to Saturn, which also opposes the Gemini Moon.

This has the potential to play out in one of two different ways, depending:

1) Saturn imbues the Sadge Sun with a certain “belief system” gravitas that’s then drawn up and out by the Moon to express—through its foundational commitment to these beliefs—our soul’s truths; or

2) Saturn weighs down, consolidates, and restricts us to a fear-based, finite “belief system,” or one that’s not open to new ideas, information, or ways of thinking and–as a result–the opportunity for expansion of consciousness is lost…

The square to this Gemini Full Moon by Chiron in Pisces reminds us there’s a wound to believing in our higher selves and to the notion that our higher self is part of the divine collective. It’s this wound we are challenged now to integrate via stilling the outside noise so we may hear the authentic voice of our higher selves.

We are each our own temple, and though many of us recognize this truth on a physical level, often we forget about it on the mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. Allowing the kinds of disparate thoughts that invade our psyches to produce more harm than good, more worry than calm, more insecurity than security, only keeps us distracted from our true inner journey…

Easy Air Energy

There’s also a grand air trine between Jupiter in Libra, Mars in Aquarius, and the Gemini Moon, which means that Mars and Jupiter also sextile the Sun and Saturn. Altogether, this can aid us in moving quickly toward positive recognition of our truths or, alternatively, it can provide an easy way out of such hard work.

Air is rational thought, and it may be easy with a grand air trine (especially with fast Mars and expansive Jupiter energy involved!) to become caught up in a particular way of thinking that moves us quickly out of deep introspection and toward more mentally facile pursuits.

However, if we choose to work positively in the direction of exploring our psyches as a way to make the unconscious more conscious, this grand air trine may provide us with the capability for some outside-the-box Aquarian aha! moments. The light shed by these may illuminate the split between our rational mind’s ego orientation and that of our inner, higher, selves and thus allow us a new perspective…

What’s In It For Me?

How do we know which of our truths are keepers and which ones to jettison as we attempt to navigate this Gemini Full Moon?

Clearing the mind of chatter through meditation—sitting, moving, whatever—always helps. Recognizing synchronicities and choosing to believe they are divinely-inspired messages helps as well.

Having the conviction that your “truth” may well be true for you, but not for anyone else, goes a long way toward self-acceptance first and acceptance of others next.

Sagittarius energy calls us to recognize the negativity of “righteousness” of any one belief system over the other, while Gemini reminds us there are many different angles—or perspectives–to every thought…

In honor of Gemini Sun/Sadge Rising Bob Dylan’s recent receipt of the Nobel Prize for Literature, here’s his song A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fallwhich somehow seems fitting for this month’s Gemini Full Moon!

Or, simply read his uncannily prescient lyrics here:

“Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son
And where have you been, my darling young one
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son
And what did you see, my darling young one
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…

Oh, what did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded with hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…

And what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And what’ll you do now, my darling young one?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can s it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my song well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall…”

Sagittarius New Moon: Your Higher Truth

Sagittarius energy–the sign ruled by the planet Jupiter, the great benefic—is always about expansion. It corresponds also with adventurous long-distance journeys, higher education, law, and philosophy of life, including religion.

Sagittarius encompasses how one’s philosophy of life manifests as what we come to believe in as the truth. For many people, such truths derive from an indoctrinated religion. For others, they emerge from deep within through an expanded consciousness derived by going out into the world with open-minded curiosity and wonder.

This is not a condemnation of organized religion. Far from it. Most major religions have resulted inthe codification of morals and ethics into laws by which we live so that we may coexist peacefully and in community with our brothers and sisters.

So, yes, Sagittarius is an energy about expanding whatever it touches in your chart, but in the end–when you boil it all down–it’s really about one of the most important things we humans can experience, which is the expansion of our own consciousness.

It’s Sagittarius energy that allows us to jettison traditionalistic security-enhancing hardline religious ways of thinking–and to rise above them and onto a more spiritual plane. And such expansion—as many can attest–allows us to have faith without the need for tangible, empirical, concrete, physical proof.

This Sagittarius New Moon—when the Moon meets the Sun in the sky and we have what’s known as a dark of the moon period—provides fertile ground for planting the seed of faith in the world around us. And this may mean beginning to think in more expansive, all-inclusive, and spiritual ways.

Sagittarius New Moon Square Dance

Unfortunately, this Sagittarius New Moon is fraught with obstacles to overcome in terms of making strides toward the kind of faith derived from greater consciousness which, even on a good day, is no easy task!

The trouble begins with the fact that this 7 degree 42 minute Sagittarius New Moon squares Neptune, which conjuncts the South Node in Pisces, and the Virgo North Node. The nodal axis represents our karmic dilemma, meaning the energy we’re tasked with moving away from (in this case the Pisces South Node), and that which the universe encourages us to move toward (Virgo.)

Astrologer Steven Forrest likes to say that any planets squaring the nodal axis show us what may have “vexed”–or blocked–us in prior lifetimes, as well as in our current one. Squares in astrology are always challenges requiring a good bit of inner strength and insight to recognize and overcome.

As discussed in previous writings, I view Neptune on the South Node and in the sign of Pisces as very much about the struggle to move away from seeing people, circumstances, and things the way we want to see them, rather than as they really are.

Under the influence of Neptune–the planet of illusion, delusion, and confusion–we may repress our own greatness and project it out and onto another or others, thus making them larger than life and casting them in the role of saviors or redeemers.

Think of sitting in the first row of a movie theater and looking up at your larger-than-life favorite movie star or celebrity from that perspective, and I think you’ll get what I mean.

The Sun square Neptune sets us up right now to quest after the elusive father figure, to idolize males in our lives who appear to us to be redeemers. The Moon square Neptune can make us prone to invasion by other peoples’ energies and, as a result, to feel depressed, fatigued, enraged, or whatever emotion we may empathically pick up from others and/or the collective right now.

Neptune & The Con That We Call “Love”

The challenge right now is to try to recognize what’s real and what is not.

A tall order when Neptune/Pisces energy is involved, especially if this Sagittarius New Moon degree falls in a significant area of your own personal horoscope.

The trouble with Neptune—often referred to as the planet of illusion, confusion, and delusion—is with our tendency to project. All that glitters is not gold, as they say, and this is particularly true whenever Neptune or Pisces energy is involved.

Often, it’s tough to tell whether another has deceived us into thinking of them as savior-like, or if we ourselves boosted them to such great heights. Let’s call it the “rose-colored glasses” syndrome…

In the end, the question always becomes how much have we allowed others to deceive us with promises of happily-ever-after-love-and commitment, glory, wealth, stability, health, etc., and how much is based upon our own illusory thinking?

Neptune/Pisces energy is always concerned with redemption—accomplished only by returning to source energy. In cruder parlance, it’s the attempt to return to the mother’s womb. Metaphorically, it’s the womb of the great mother–a place where we’re all connected as one, lost in a blissful state of the collective unconscious. In this context, Neptune/Pisces’ connotation with escapism is undeniable.

This kind of energy can leave us vulnerable to escapism, illusory thinking, dreams that have zero basis in reality–and which cause us to project onto the greater screen in our minds the gloriousness of another. Hence, Neptune/Pisces represents both the victim and the savior.

A Martyr In My Bed Tonight

Compounding this conundrum on this Sagittarius New Moon is the fact that it’s joined by the asteroid Juno, which also squares Neptune and the Nodes. The question becomes: is our thinking vis-à-vis partnership clear right now?

Juno, the Roman counterpart to the Greek Hera—the wife of Jupiter/Zeus, the king of the gods—has an honored place among the pantheon of the gods. Mythologically, however, Juno/Hera is regularly deceived by Jupiter/Zeus in the realm of marriage–which in our latter day more parochial view is sanctioned as a supposedly unbreakable bond with our partner.

Now, this isn’t saying that everyone’s partner is going to deceive them at this Sagittarius New Moon. No, no, no! Rather, it’s about asking yourself whether any partner you’ve chosen is of the same belief system as you and whether it matters…and how, why, and where we may project onto them attributes they, in fact, do not possess.

Here are a few questions we might ask ourselves at this Sagittarius New Moon:

Where might a partner appear to be on board with our thinking, but turn out to have quite different views?

How can we transcend our rigid thinking and allow this person to coexist in our lives without having to dump him or her, deceive them, or allow ourselves to be deceived by them?

Alternatively:

How might we be idolizing or idealizing a partner out of all proportion?

Where are we so desperate for a redeemer that we’re willing to accept less than?

How can we fulfill our needs in partnership from within first and without second?

As we move forward and question our partnerships, our answer about whether to leave such partnerships behind may in some cases be a resounding “yes!” while in others the issues won’t prove big enough to be deal breakers.

Going deep now about where we’ve fooled ourselves into thinking that someone else can solve our problems is bigly in play right now. While we may find that we’ve projected our desires out to a political figure, a cleric, our boss, or someone in our more personal sphere, it behooves us all to try to put our finger on it.

Failure to do so can result in many of us chasing the kind of rainbows that both Neptune/Pisces and Jupiter/Sagittarius allow us to project out and onto the world at large, and can set us up for major disappointment in the future…

Why Don’t We Break The Rules Already?

As Jupiter squares Pluto during this New Moon (and begins move into opposition with Uranus over the next few months as well) it’s a good idea to look at improving your relationships, but avoid obsessing over what you think is right.

Remember, to be really convinced that your truths really are true—for you—you might need to reexamine your ideas of right and wrong. Then, if you have the courage of your convictions you can stand on solid, not shaky, ground. If not, you are likely to run into resistance from another or others. Try to avoid power-tripping anyone now as well!

Jupiter begins to move into opposition with Uranus, creating—along with the tight square of Venus to Uranus on this Sagittarius Full Moon–the desire for change by busting loose, a.k.a., freedom. This energy will wax in strength as this opposition becomes exact between December 2016 and February 2017.

Although Venus moves quickly, its square to Uranus at the precise moment of this Sagittarius New Moon signifies that our values are also up for reflection and introspection. Venus always bottom lines for us that which gives us pleasure via the five senses and the physical body, and what truly makes us feel good–which then becomes that which we value.

However, this square to Uranus may makes us feel too hemmed in or unable to move freely, and may foretell the sudden throwing over of anyone or anything now in our attempt to be free. Or someone may throw us over instead.

Let’s face it, how can we be flexible if we’re stuck, complacent, or too resistant to change? Anyone or anything in your life that causes stagnation may have to go…if not in the short term, then Venus square Uranus may trigger events on this Sagittarius New Moon that conspire (as Jupiter moves into opposition to Uranus) to result in your moving on in one way or another, whether by choice or not…

“The other night, you wouldn’t believethe dream I just had about you and meI called you up, but we’d both agree
It’s for the best you didn’t listen
It’s for the best we get our distance…”

What Do I Stand For?

Despite this, however, the true danger with this Sagittarius New Moon squaring Neptune and the Nodes becomes settling in to a new kind of rigidity. But this is not a Saturnine rigidity—rather, this is a Jupiter/Sagittarius shadow side rigidity.

Thinking we know everything, that we have all the answers, can be a major pitfall here. And the possibility of projecting this onto a leader because it’s part of the collective unconscious deserves acknowledgment…

Such a mindset stops us at the borders of our current consciousness and allows the ego, which is Saturnine, to proceed unchecked. Drawing our wagons in a circle, so to speak, to barricade our boundaries from infiltration by the “other” is a danger we’d be well-apprised to consider before we mount any kind of ideological attack on any other individual, group, nation, religion, race, gender, etc.

Neptune at the South Node in Pisces runs the risk of letting it all float awaydownstream as we lie helpless to stop it. This kind of anesthetization has been prevalent in the world for a while—one need only examine where one knows one checks out in order to avoid dealing with the harsher realities of real life as proof.

The issue becomes whether we can go deep and actually consciously investigate what might lie under the surface, embedded in our psyches, that prevents us from moving toward Virgo North Node energy–clarity, detail orientation, discernment, and nuance.

In short, do we possess the capability to make out of Neptune and the South Node’s hazy Piscean Haldane soup something concrete, something manifest, something we can live with and by

A belief system that not only arises from the deeper depths of your soul’s true knowledge, but which softens ideological boundaries rather than fortifying them into a rigidly constructed belief system that never allows your thinking to change is something to ponder now…

If we convince ourselves to take that higher road, we’re able to embark on the journey that Jupiter’s Sagittarian energy so often encompasses. Freedom to think as one chooses, even if one is in the minority, the adventuress-ness to soar to new heights of the mind–but in alignment with the true needs of the soul–is what this Sagittarius New Moon cries out for us all to try to do…

The energy of this Sagittarius New Moon brings into mind another time when conflicting ideologies caused war between previously peaceful factions…when I saw that FUN had used a civil war themefor its video, it was like a reminder of where things can head if we do not keep an open mind and open dialogue with those who philosophies of life may be different from ours…

“But I still wake up, I still see your ghost
Oh Lord, I’m still not sure what I stand for, oh
What do I stand for? Oh what do I stand for?Most nights, I don’t know…

So this is it? I sold my soul for this?
Washed my hands of that for this?
I miss my mom and dad for this?No. When I see stars, when I see stars, that’s all they are
When I hear songs, they sound like a swan, so come on…”

* “The video shows a fictional battle taking place during the American Civil Warand the band singing from afar as war breaks out with lead singer Nate appearing as the commander of the Union force. The story also follows two particular soldiers, one from each side of the conflict. From the Confederacy, the song follows a middle-aged farmer clearly in love with his life, land, and animals, while from the Union side the story follows two young lovers torn apart as the young man heads off to the fight. The broken loves, of beauty and of nature, eventually clash in the battle with consequences for both the loser and winner, showing that the personal costs of war will continue far beyond the battleground.” [Wikipedia]

On this Scorpio New Moon, when the Moon meets up with the Sun in the sign of the scorpion (who’s sting can transform us from one dimension to another, i.e., through the transformative cycle of death and rebirth), the time is ripe for evolution…

What kind of evolution?

EVOLUTION REVOLUTION!

Well, evolution implies the need for change, and when it comes to Scorpio energy, it’s about empowerment and/or dis-empowerment.

Whichever way you roll, it’s got the word power in it, lol…

Ergo, the question becomes: will change help move us toward true personal empowerment, or will resistance keep us hidden back in the shadows attempting to pull the puppet strings from afar, thereby controlling situations without honestly confronting them?

The Scorpio archetype revolves around the concept of wholeness and regeneration, which is why one of the key words for this sign is transformation.

The universe is made up of energy, and energy needs to constantly flow as that’s its nature. When we refuse to move toward change, we deny a law of nature. And that usually comes at a price far higher than most of us are willing to acknowledge, never mind admit…

WILLING TO MARCH INTO HELL FOR A HEAVENLY CAUSE?

Scorpio also carries a psychic signature. Pluto–after whom the sign’s modern ruling planet is named—is the Greek god of Hades, the underworld.

Able to imperceptibly cross the divide between the earthly plane of humans and Hades, known as the land of “shades” to the ancient Greeks, Pluto represents the realm of souls who’ve “crossed over” from one dimension to another after the soul leaves the body at death.

It’s this “crossing of the divide” that most interests a psychological/archetypal/evolutionary astrologer like me…

Renowned psychological astrologer Liz Greene has written and lectured about how the planet Pluto, the modern ruler of the sign Scorpio, attempts to annihilate anything it touches.

Her point? That the Scorpio archetype is part of the alchemical process of change, or the normal (and necessary) course of evolution (including transformation through the cycles of death and rebirth) inherent in all life forms…

Unlike Scorpio’s traditional ruler, the planet Mars, Pluto is less interested in fighting (be it for a just cause or simply because one has a chip on one’s shoulder!) than he is in evolving.

“Fighting for territory, fighting to win, fighting for a mate, fighting to procreate, fighting for leadership of the pack–these are all Mars functions,” writes Greene in “The Mars Quartet.”

“Pluto is concerned with the overall evolution and survival of life, but survival does not necessarily involve fighting, and evolution may require adaptation…”

The risk behind not adapting is extinction, Greene adds.

If and when forced to fight, Pluto’s battle cry sounds like this: Change or be changed! You can go easy or you can go hard, but either way you’re goin’…how you go is your choice…

SOMETIMES THE SHADOW WINS

Scorpio energy likes to dig deeply into the seamy side of life. Of all the signs, Scorpio is most indicative of our “shadow side.” That’s because everyone’s shadow lies buried deep within and only by dragging it out into the light can it be seen in its proper perspective.

If we’re brave enough and don’t falter–though we may at times tremble with fear–we allow ourselves to travel beyond our ego’s borders into the misty twilit swamps of our unconscious mind…

What we discover there could change us irrevocably…

It’s never easy to try to learn what we don’t know, but only by digging deeply—asking questions, being persistent, not taking no for an answer—can we begin to make progress.

Only by bravely standing at the ready to hear, see, feel, taste, touch, and ACCEPT–regardless of final outcome–can we begin to integrate the unconscious into consciousness and thereby become truly WHOLE…

Thus, this Scorpio New Moon is about embracing the shadow rather than obliterating it…

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL…

So what’s it gonna be for you on this Scorpio New Moon?

We receive a potential boost from this Scorpio New Moon–which falls at 7 degrees, 43 minutes–because it conjuncts Mercury, trines transiting Neptune and the South Node in Pisces, and sextiles the Virgo North Node.

A trine is a 120-degree angle–known as a “soft aspect”—that allows circumstances or people to move forward easily. Of course, there’s no guarantee that “forward” is “good,” as such easy momentum can also result in situations or people moving TOO fast…

This trine to Neptune/South Node can go one of two ways: you may find moving out of the Neptune/Pisces South Node energy of escapist or addictive behavior, and/or victim or martyr tendencies, comes easily to you now.

Or, you might let the ease of this transiting aspect suck you back into the oblivion of an insulated, passive, somebody-else-has-to-take-care-if-it-and/or-me attitude of yesteryear…

My money’s on the former, mostly because this Scorpio New Moon also sextiles the Virgo North Node. Sextiles are 60-degree angles that represent opportunities, as long as we are smart and swift enough to recognize and act on them.

Now is the time to seize the day and move away from any Neptune-induced fog into which we may have become immersed (especially with the recent Saturn square Neptune energy of this past year still in evidence) and toward the clarity of Virgoan discernment.

Virgo sweats the details. Pisces does not. Need I say more?

Recognizing one has a choice is the first step in the battle toward bringing the unconscious into consciousness. And integrating the dark into the light allows us to better achieve our karmic mission in this lifetime…

Helping us to think (and dig) more clearly and deeply into our situation–and how we might profitably plumb the depths of our psyches to excavate and extricate our true inner wisdom–is the Scorpio New Moon’s conjunction with Mercury.

Powerfully deep is Mercury in Scorpio—with heart (Moon), ego (Sun), and mind (Mercury) in alignment there are no depths to which we cannot (or will not) dive!

The potential result?

The planting now of seeds of self-empowerment which ultimately produce perennial and evergreen buds that bloom into a beautiful garden. In turn, we’re likely to reap the benefits of increased self-confidence and gain the type of empowerment borne out of self-knowledge and greater understanding.

Such enlightenment not only increases our ability to recognize, but to speak, our truth and to stand up and be counted…

HEAVEN HELP US ALL

Helping us to “sweat the details” also is a Venus/Saturn meet up during this 48-hour dark of the moon period.

Venus is about values; Saturn about maturation, among other things. When the two cross paths in the sky like this, we can also go one of two ways but always we’re asked either to make a commitment or to give something up.

If the latter, we should rest assured that whatever we give up is no longer instrumental to our future growth. It’s not always easy, and sometimes may cause pain, but it’s always about moving forward free and clear of obligations that will serve no future purpose other than to weigh us down and impede our karmic progress in the end…

This Venus/Saturn pair up also square Neptune and the Nodes (karmic indicators), strengthening the notion that whatever commitment you’re asked to make–or challenge you face now about letting someone or something go–has longer term implications for you.

If you’ve experienced anything sudden and/or unexpected in the past few days, it’s likely the effect of Mars having squared Uranus on October 28. When these two planets connect via a hard angle (as the square is known) this “something sudden” may prove problematic in some way…

The challenge, as always, is to face it squarely and recognize the need for change. Occurring so close to this Scorpio New Moon, can you see the redundancy of the theme of CHANGE?

Finally, Jupiter is approaching an exact square to Pluto on November 20. As he does so, the energy is waxing, or getting stronger.

Jupiter, the king of gods—the great benefic who often brings good luck and good fortune, and about whom the worst that can be said is that he brings TOO MUCH of something—is getting ready to confront the god of transformation.

I interpret Jupiter as THE planet of higher consciousness. His square to Pluto indicates—again following this Scorpio New Moon’s theme of TRANSFORMATION—that taking the higher road toward transforming darkness into light in the form of self-knowledge may not be easily achieved, but is one way we can proactively choose to go…

Harking back to the Venus/Saturn square to the karmic Nodes, Jupiter’s square to Pluto is also about conquering any resulting difficulty we may have believing in ourselves. Whatever commitments we make, whatever we’re forced to give up, trusting it’s all for our highest and best good–regardless of any opposition (internal or external!)–is called for now…

Continuing to have faith that whatever decision we make will mature us and stand us in good stead down the road is one not-so-small step forward in our karmic evolution …

Namaste…

Here’s the song Heaven Help Us All, performed by Ray Charles, reminding us all to keep the faith:

“Heaven help the boy who never had a home,Heaven help the girl who walks the street aloneHeaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall,Heaven help us all.

Heaven help the black man if he struggles one more day,Heaven help the white man if he turns his back away,Heaven help the man who kicks the man who has to crawl,Heaven help us all.

Heaven help the boy who won’t reach twenty-one,Heaven help the man who gave that boy a gun.Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall,Lord, Heaven help us all.”

The battle royal brewing between Saturn in Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces affects us all both personally and through the collective. This showdown, the result of a frictional square aspect between these two planets in the sky, became exact on November 26. It will be exact again on both June 17 & September 10, 2016.

Ergo, this energy dominates both the personal and collective realms between now and at least September 2016.

However, Saturn’s propensity for foundations, borders, and boundaries can resist Sagittarius’s desire to expand one’s ability to learn more about oneself through greater connection with other ways of thinking and being…

So, Saturn transiting Sagittarius may play out in two distinctly separate ways, as Saturn likes to contract & protect while Sagittarius favors expansion through higher learning & its connection to the divine realm:

• The expansion of consciousness around one’s realistic & grounded belief system
• The narrowing/stunting of one’s belief system into a rigid philosophy of life that–in the end–impedes growth in consciousness

WHEN SATURN & SAG DON’T PLAY NICE

When there exists a rigid mentality of the sort harbored by one who is righteously inflexible about his or her IDEA or philosophy, the desire to ground this idea become absolute.

In such a case, the actual attempt to manifest a dream encapsulated in such absolute rigidity becomes the mechanism by which the seeds of destruction are sown. And those hell-bent on sowing such seeds will likely find—at some point at least—that that which does not bend will break…

Throw a little FIXED Uranian/Aquarian ideology into the mix (Uranus in Aries anyone?) and the worst possible scenario becomes anarchy on the level of the collective. Recent suicide bombings and the massacre of innocents in Paris, Beirut, Mali, Syria, and other locations worldwide in the name of BELIEF illustrate what this worst case scenario can look like when individuals band together in the name of such rigidly held beliefs…

Those bound and determined to overthrow whatever structure is in place in the name of their beliefs—rather than to work toward their ends through diplomacy, negotiation, & compromise—illustrate the more negative, fear-based, knee-jerk, self-protective energy of Saturn combined with a “change at all costs” Uranian thrust.

However, when one’s Sagittarian dream (or vision) is lassoed and brought down to earth by Saturn, one may look at it in the cold hard light of day, check its vital signs, assess its actual proportions, and begin to tweak it and work with it realistically.

When nurtured and well-paced through Saturn’s penchant for cautionary boundaries, Sag’s all-inclusive & tolerant philosophy becomes the lens through which the dream of peace may truly manifest. In short, through Saturn’s patience and regard for slow growth, some truly amazing positive expansion can be born!

Yes, well, ok, maybe that is a bit pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking—but at least we’d be a whole helluva lot closer to it than now, no?

BOUNDARY OR BOUNDARY-LESS?

Onward now to Neptune…in Pisces…long story short:

Negative side of this archetype=addiction, escapism, confused &/or deluded thinking, misguided spirituality or spirituality without faith, lack of personal boundaries (where do you end and I begin?), & uber-sensitivity to self.

Positive side=faith, creativity, spirituality, understanding that “no man is an island” because we are all one–all part of humankind (the collective), compassion, & empathy.

Once again, as with Saturn, we have an issue concerning “boundaries.”

Saturn likes to pull the wagons into a tight little circle, keep out intruders, lock the doors and windows at night, and hide the guns in the safe (thinking he’ll get to them before any thief or murderer has the chance to pull their weapon first…)

Neptune (the modern ruler of Pisces) is water that wears down even rock over time, gas that seeps under the doors and through the windows, & energy that in general lacks the kind of boundaries that Saturn stakes its life on…and to top it off, Neptune/Piscean energy is intangibly metaphysical…meaning just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there…

“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.” ~ Richard Bach

Neptunian energy provides us with the capability to empathize and feel compassion. Admittedly, an over-abundance of such energy may allow one to feel empathy and compassion ONLY for ONESELF…

This is the shadow side of Neptune, the “woe is me” & “why me?” victimization story, or the “I did it for love of my man/woman/country/God” martyr complex.

Just as Saturn in Sag allows us two alternatives–expanding our consciousness OR rigidly limiting our beliefs to an “us or them” mentality—Neptune in Pisces grants us several choices as well…

But, while Saturn’s choices are juxtapositions or opposites, Neptune’s are actually three: victim, martyr, or one who relinquishes both stances and attempts to provide for oneself unconditional love.

This means one does not have to play the victim in order to seek love from another, or play the martyr who ultimately harbors a hidden ego-boosting agenda, a he or she “will love me if I sacrifice for them” mentality.

Victim and martyr are actually two sides of the same coin in that both tilt the scale toward a “it’s really all about me, you know” mindset. The key is whether or not one is conscious of which role one plays.

The opposite of victim or martyr is one who neither ALWAYS passively REACTS rather than ACTS, nor one who takes on others’ troubles & thereby seeks to save them. While loving oneself unconditionally is a tall order, it’s a must for those of us who seek peace, both internally & externally.

SO HOW CAN SATURN & NEPTUNE RECONCILE THEIR DIFFERENCES?

As the Saturn in Sagittarius square Neptune in Pisces plays out energetically over the next year or so it asks us all to pose to ourselves the following questions:

• Where am I–down to my toes, feel it in my bones–absolutely SURE that what I believe is synonymous with what is RIGHT?
• What is MY TRUTH?
• How do my beliefs impact my sense of compassion for others (or lack thereof?)
• How can I have (& protect) my boundaries without becoming too self-protected & morally rigid, yet maintain my sense of faith in the world around me & not give myself away?

Charity begins at home, they say…allowing oneself the ability to fearlessly expand one’s horizons rather than limit them is key. Knowing that what’s best for oneself is not necessarily good for another is also a step in the right direction.

Applying the concept of unconditional love–not for the sake of saving others or for moaning and groaning about your lot in life, but rather to stoke the internal fires of self-love so that such love is ultimately reflected back to us–is the key…

Saturn’s greatest achievement in our lives is through the process of maturation. Saturn in Sagittarius helps us grow into our dreams, ideas and philosophies, not become limited or atrophied by them.

Neptune’s greatest lesson is that having faith in ourselves is possible if and when we believe we deserve to love ourselves first and others second. If not, Neptune’s energies disperse, flow, drift, and disappear silently downstream never to be seen or heard from again…

Saturn gives our Sagittarian philosophies structure, while its square to Neptune in Pisces allows faith in ourselves to grow at a sure, steady, reliable pace. This, in turn, sets the foundation for a world where our internal love for self is manifested out in the world and reflected back to us all as part of the collective…

One of the things I’ve noticed over the years of working with published authors as a writing coach/editor is how many of them carry Sagittarius energy somewhere in their archetypal makeup.

Nah, I don’t need a birth (natal) chart to discern this–I can tell from the way they speak, how they tell a story, and the dramatic use of prose in their writing…

Often, just when I think such a writer is approaching what used to be known in the literary world as purple prose (I’ll give ya hint–OVER exaggeration!), and soon as I start to doubt that author’s authenticity, she takes it down a notch and it all reads so…well…dramatically realistic!

But not in a too over-the-top way…

Gemini energy is curious, talkative, inquisitive, and social! While the Gemini archetype is concerned with information, it’s not necessarily focused on anything more than gathering that info and passing it on.

Low side Gemini archetype may manifest as a gossip; high side provides information to others for a purpose.

The Gemini Sun opposes this Sagittarius Moon on June 2 to reveal the dichotomy between these two archetypal energies.

As the Gemini Sun casts its light on this Sag Moon, it reveals to us all the difference between collecting information–information that may well remain un-categorized and un-analyzed (for this is the archetype Virgo’s function), and imbuing that information with real meaning.

Attributing collective meaning to bits and pieces of data and information is Sagittarius’ role. Without a greater understanding of the whole, these tidbits become (or remain) meaningless.

So, as you write, understand you are writing on two different levels at all times: The macrocosm, or big picture story (which has a literary theme and fits into a genre); and the details of smaller stories that–when combined in a manuscript–reflect your big picture theme.

It is these shorter stories (i.e., this series of anecdotal microcosms, i.e., chapters and sub-plots) that add up to the sum total of your overall message!

This Sag Full Moon asks us to distinguish between the truth of our smaller stories and the integrity of our bigger themes…

What is the truth?

Do you know? How can you transform your passion for your message into something from which others can benefit?

How can you take your bits and pieces and weave them together into the fabled fabric of a most excellent and gripping narrative?

And can you put aside your beliefs–including ones that no longer serve you–in order to believe in yourself? Can you get it down on paper without judging it?

This Full Moon cries out for integration of polar opposite energies (as do all Full Moons!) and the release of any beliefs that no longer serve you…

Time to jettison the I’m not good enough to write that book belief? Or the one that tells you it’s all been written before? How about the almost-but-not-quite-convincing line: Nobody wants to hear what I have to say!

Might it not be better for you to keep your eye on the prize by not losing sight of the big picture?

Why not gather up your small stories, your colorful microcosms, your bits and pieces, and begin to weave them into that tapestry–the one you’d create with your writing if you simply gave it a try?

As for worrying about the truth of whether you’re a good writer or not, I suggest taking into consideration the words of the character of Pontius Pilate in the rock opera Jesus Christ Super Star when he says:

“But what is truth, is truth a changing law? We both have truths–are mine the same as yours?”